Who Should We Rescue?

Recently attended the 31st annual A.L.E.R.T. Banquet. The ALERT team has documented 1,300 "life salvages." Exactly how many of those would have died is a guestimate, but the known number is in the hundreds. Included are 30 victims of grizzly attacks. Most flights were more routine accidents and illnesses. Annual maintenance expenses on the Bell 407 copter are $180,000. In November of 1988, I wrote about 'rescuing people" and the topic is still germane:

How far should taxpayers go in paying for the search and rescue of injured, sick or lost persons? That issue comes up every now and then but is never considered controversial if the victim is doing work. Here in the Flathead where millions of acres are remote or complete wilderness, the days of controversy seem to be history, although the subject still comes up.

It came up with national headlines last month when one Jeffrey Morgan, a 30-year-old man form Georgia, had to be rescued off the snowy top of Mt. Moriah, New Hampshire. An experienced hiker, Jeffrey had purchased a fifth of vodka to adjust his attitude and tolerance toward the cold New England weather. He almost died of hypothermia and was found wandering delirious on the mountain. A large rescue crew carried him down.

Hauled into court for 'reckless hiking," Jeffrey was fined $250. The judge said he was not going to tolerate any more thoughtless actions of that sort where a person "knows his actions will place the lives or safety of others in jeopardy." Benevolent people will try to save even fools, but I think the judge wanted to send a message to those similarly inclined.

Searches, rescues and body recoveries are common in isolated country but in northwest Montana where big wilderness areas and Glacier Park lure the adventuresome, we have many such exercises each year. Until Sheriff Dick Walsh and some of his friends organized our first Search and Rescue group back in the late forties and early fifties, rescue efforts were not too well organized.

It was the advent of powerful sno-cats, boats, airplanes, helicopters and expensive communications that caused costs to soar and raised those first voices of protests. The usual complaint from those not involved was, "Who the hell is going to pay for all this?"

I recall a few "cost gripes' during the search for five young men who perished on Mt. Cleveland in late December of 1969. The answer from the mountain climbing fraternity was, "We didn't ask any outsiders for help. Mountaineers take care of their own."

That was daring youth's answer to critics. On that search there were many of the Rocky Mountain's best climbers, but there were also well trained men from the Park Service. It was perhaps the first time Glacier Rangers had ever faced such a difficult weather challenge. I went to Mt. Cleveland expecting a Chinese fire drill because of the Park's handling of the fatal grizzly bear attack a year and a half earlier. My fears were dispelled and I was able to report on radio from Waterton, Alberta, "There are competent and brave men here under the direction of veteran Ranger, Robert Frausen."

A former smokejumper friend of mine, Tom Milligan, has recently retired from the National Park Service, but I visited him at his post in Grand Teton Park a few years back. We drove up the highway form Park headquarters at Moose talking over old times and I mentioned I had never climbed "The Grande." Tom replied, "If it's all the same to you George, I'd appreciate it if you waited two more years until I'm retired." Said he had helped haul down the bodies of 43 climbers during his years there in Jackson Hole. He'd lost track of the numbers of injured and ill.

We both knew some of those people who died on towering rock cliffs of the Tetons were ill prepared for the task they had chosen, but the mountains can also kill the most experienced and best equipped of climbers. Perhaps the Mark Twain philosophy can be applied, "Every man is entitled to his own brand of insanity."

There are many reason humans seek solace or adventure in remote places, and being adjudged crazy by some of the passing crowd, should not omit them from an act of basic compassion, even if they have a fifth of vodka.

G. George Ostrom is a Kalispell resident and a national-award winning Hungry Horse News columnist.